Bad Decisions
by scribblescribblescribble
Summary: Doing the right thing for the wrong reasons, the Penguin offers a woman his protection inside Arkham City. Doing the wrong thing for the right reasons, she accepts.
1. Henchmen

Obligatory Disclaimer: Own nothing of DC's, not making any money.

A/N: So, this story takes place in a different universe than Museum Studies, if you're reading that one. It might even be the same reality as Bat-teen28's Junior Sirens and Swordstitcher's Dead Switch, if they like the idea. (Hint, hint?) Anyhow, this story… In Museum Studies, the Penguin is my OC's father. I read Penguin: Pain and Prejudice, which casts an illuminating and sympathetic light on his character even though the Penguin from that tale is obviously not the same as the Arkham City/Origins Penguin, it got me thinking.

In Origins, while Ozzie treats his male subordinates just as vindictively as in City, he's much nicer to his female assistants even beyond the implied fun'n'games. So this is going to be a romance of sorts taking place during City between Oswald Chesterfield Cobblepot and another OC, Ruth, rather older than Adele, (and obviously not his daughter!) with greater experience of life, and not quite as incisive, either. I would also like to state that in real life, I would not want to date him, and that my life does not resemble Ruth's. That's what makes this fiction. While there is no graphic sex in here, because, well, ewww, I'm not describing the Penguin doing _that,_ there is a fair amount of innuendo and things happen off screen, as it were.

* * *

"I think the Boss would be in, ya know, a better mood if he could get laid," said the thug to his buddies.

"Yeah? Well, so would I, but that don't change nuthin'" said the nearest.

"I'm serious. I think we oughtta find him a woman," said the man whose idea it was.

"In here? There ain't a whole lot of skirts in here, in case you hadn't noticed," a third pointed out. "The doctors in the medical center are under guard, Harley's taken and anyway he wants to _kill _her, Ivy's literally poison, and Catwoman's outta his league."

"Not necessarily," the first pointed out. "Some of his assistants, man," he whistled. "Catwoman had nothin' they didn't."

"Catwoman's got her own money, even if she takes it offa other people," the previous speaker reasoned. "His assistants _earn_ theirs. In and outta bed. That's the difference."

"Getting back to the point," the Idea Man raised his voice, "there are some women who get thrown in here too."

"Yeah, one for like every thirty guys, and they disappear damn quick," the second thug said.

"Somebody said there's this Armenian or Albanian, mighta been Romanian, who runs a whorehouse somewhere in the Mile, and he has guys who hang around the entry yard ready to snatch up any snatch what comes in." the third man added.

"Funny, I heard the same thing, except it's pretty young guys they look out for," the second rebutted.

"Yeah? Well, I also heard there's a butcher shop in Industrial where you can get fresh meat almost any time you like, as long as you don't mind it tasting kinda like pork but not quite," the first man told them.

"Anyhow, the Boss is particular about his tail," he continued. "If she was ever in a house, he won't wanna touch her. What I'm thinkin' is, there's the three of us, and they only send in new inmates Monday through Friday. If we take turns hangin' out around the entrance, armed of course, then when one of us sees something the Boss might want, we cut her out of the herd, call the others, and get her back to the Museum before the Armenian or whatever he is can get a look-see."

"Fair enough, but again, I'm gonna bring up his assistants. I ain't never seen him with nothin' less than an eight outta ten, and she was a jazz pianist, which explains the upgrade. From what I unnerstand, except for the costumes like Ivy and the Cat, mosta the women they send in here are meth-heads, crack-whores and the one who killed seven foster kids and her grandma so's she could keep collecting the checks without doin' none of the caretaking, " the third man argued.

"She didn't kill the old lady, she just hid the body after she died of natural causes," pointed out the second man.

"_Whatever_. The point is, what are the chances we're gonna find somethin' up to his standards?" Third rebutted. "And that bein' the case, why bother?"

"First, the circumstances. Being in here and alive has gotta upgrade a six to a ten, so we just hafta find one who's reasonably young and healthy. Second, the boss's gettin' meaner than when he had to have a root canal a few years back, because he could take Vicodin for that, so it's worth making the effort for that reason alone. Third, if he likes her he'll be grateful, and when he's grateful he's generous."

"Well, if you're gonna put it that way…"

A few weeks later:

"I dunno. Are you sure that's really a woman?" the second thug asked. "I mean, I know that Tyger guard next to her. The Boss had me pick up a package of black-tar heroin offa him a few weeks ago. That guy's six feet tall with plenty of muscle. She's bigger than he is!"

"Look at that coat she's got on. It's freakin' turquoise! No man, whatever side he likes to play on, is gonna wear a turquoise coat around this town. And it's one of them puffy down things, so it makes her look bigger than she is underneath," the first thug, the one whose idea this was in the first place, replied.

"Remember that guy named Harry who used ta hang out in M'lachlan Corners in a pink kilt and fishnets? He was six-six and big with it. A'course, he also wore them with a Mohawk, Doc Martens, and tribal scars, so nobody messed with him. _He'd_ have worn a turquoise coat. That can't be a woman. If she is, she's friggin' enormous." Second pointed out.

"She's not enormous," Idea Man gave him a dirty look. "Just tall, and he likes 'em tall. Maybe she's bigger than most, but she's…proportionate. It ain't like she's got two fried eggs in the front and then an ass as wide as a loveseat."

"She ain't that young."

"Neither is he."

"She ain't that good-lookin', from what I can see."

"Neither is he."

"She ain't what you'd call hard-bodied."

"Neither is he."

"Will you friggin' cut that out?! Except for the T&A's, his assistants have all been skinny chicks. He's not gonna be grateful to us for draggin' that back. If that really is a woman, which I still don't think is the case," Second Thug groused. "Besides, who knows what she did to get sent here?"

"She's still got her coat on. That means she's political. They only let them keep their coats if they're political." Idea Man argued.

The third thug arrived then, bringing not just his gun but also a pair of binoculars. "Which one is she?"

"Fifth in line B. turquoise coat." Second Thug said.

"Okay…" Third raised the spyglasses. "Hey, I know her. Well, I don't know her to speak to, but I've seen her before. You know my girlfriend's got a kid in elementary school, right? That's one of his teachers."

"A school teacher, huh?" Second asked. "How's a school teacher manage to piss off Strange or Sharpie enough to get thrown in here?"

"How should I know?"

"Is she good-looking?" Idea Man asked.

"She's not bad," Third shrugged. "A six or a seven, going by the face. But man, if all of what she's got under her clothes is her, she puts the 'bust' in robust."

"Fat, then?" Second asked gloomily.

"Uh. Not exactly. Let's say she's a big girl. _Real_ big. All over. I think she's about six foot-two, and she probably weighs like, two hundred pounds. I went along to a Back-to-School night, and she had on one'a those tops that ain't low cut but where you keep waiting for her ta lean forward. My girl kicked me in the ankle when she caught me starin', and I was black and blue for a month. I think she chipped the bone."

"So what's her name?" Idea Man asked.

"Don't remember."

"Would _you_ hit that if you had a chance?"

"I already said I got busted for staring."

"How old do ya think she is?"

"I dunno. Women do whatever they can to keep you from tellin' how old they are. Thirties, I guess."

"And you're sure she's a woman?" That was the Second Thug weighing in again. "Cause that guy who used to go around in pink kilts went over to Thailand, and now Harry is Harriet."

"Not with_ her_ hips," Third Guy said. "They can turn a sausage into a sheath, but they can't turn a pitcher into a catcher, if you get what I mean."

"…No, I don't."

"Enougha this," Idea Man said. "Here's the plan. We're not gonna stick a gun in her face. She's got to come along willingly, cause I think those are the Armenian's guys. What's your girlfriend's kid's name?"

TBC, if people like and review it.


	2. Back-Story

Names are important, more important than people realize. They determine destiny. Doubt it? Who is more likely to get a doctoral degree, Katherine or Tiffani? Who is more likely to get that job at a Fortune 500 company, Tarence or Thomas? Which one is the beauty, Linnea Elise or Gertrude Jane? If you name a child Oswald, what kind of life do you imagine he will have? Which one is more likely to be empty-headed and promiscuous, Heidi or Ruth? Especially if she has big breasts…

Back when Heidi Ruth Lester hadn't yet dropped her first name, she went through seven bra refittings in her last year of middle school, starting out as a 32A and winding up a 38D, with more growth still to come. Her breasts brought with them a host of problems: she had to give up gymnastics, live with back-aches, learned to shake baby powder down her bra to deal with sweat and chafing and stave off heat rashes.

Worse were the social aspects: Girls glared and boys stared. Both said things. (_here comes Heidi the milkmaid who doesn't need a cow!/ hey do you work at Gerber? how about some baby food over here?) _ Grown men made remarks that she _**really**_ didn't like, _(nice tits can I take a shit on them?),_ and some of them started grabbing at her body as if she were a stuffed animal in a toy store, there for anyone to stroke and fondle. She stopped wearing any top that dipped below the collarbones, never looked anyone in the eye, quit brushing her hair at all, gave up deodorant. That kept them from wanting to get closer.

Nothing truly bad happened to her. She was never raped or molested. She was just made unhappy and self-conscious. Nothing she couldn't handle.

Then she started high school and fell in love with Brian, who didn't notice her, in the grand tradition of all high-school first loves. She started fixing herself up again, standing up straight and tall (the spurt in height also started around then), smiling at people. Brian noticed. He asked her to the movies, and she accepted. Her parents didn't want her to date until she turned sixteen, so she had to lie and sneak to do it.

Deceiving her folks made her feel guilty and a little sick, but going on a date, a real just-the-two-of-them-_date_ made her happier than she had ever known anything could, until she realized that when he put his arm around her shoulders, his hand kept landing on her breast. She asked him to stop, it was making her uncomfortable. _Why did you think I asked you out, anyway? You're really an ugly girl, but with tits like those, everybody knows you're easy_. She gave him a bloody nose more by accident than design, ran to the theatre lobby, called her mom. It was one of the hardest things she had ever had to do— asking for help, admitting what she had done, telling her mom why she needed a ride home _right now_.

Her mom came and got her. They talked about it, she cried, her mother forgave her, signed her up for self-defense classes and took her shopping. She started wearing dark colors and minimizer bras, refused to answer to Heidi, kept on getting taller. Her hips widened, her curves grew even more pronounced, her butt grew more prominent. She took up swimming as exercise, because running entailed too much painful bouncing. When she did better than Brian on all the finals, he started a rumor that she was blowing teachers in exchange for grades. That time she broke his nose on purpose.

The next year she was six feet tall, weighed a hundred and seventy pounds and was _still_ growing. Men didn't harass her nearly as much anymore. A woman who was as big as (or bigger than) they were was too daunting. At school they started calling her 'Ruthless', a play on her name. She told herself she didn't care. Then she met Kyle, who didn't look at her like she was a very big piece of steak or a freak assembled in some mad scientist's lab. He was nice. He liked music and reading. He asked her out, and although he fell short in some ways, like, well, being kind of short and having really bad acne, she said yes. They dated, and it wasn't until after they had sex that he told her he thought he was gay.

She did not date again until college. Instead she read, volunteered at the library, helping the youngest children learn to read, and realized that little children were wonderful. They didn't care if you were now over six feet tall and big with it, because all adults were bigger and taller than they were. They didn't care if you weren't pretty. If they loved you they hugged you enthusiastically and innocently. That decided her career path; early childhood education, reading specialist. She set out to get a Master of Arts in Reading.

Her second boyfriend was also coming to grips with his sexuality. Clearly her gaydar was broken.

When she got her Master's, she was six foot one and a half. Her measurements were 42DD, 39 inch waist, 48 inch hips. Her driver's license _said_ she weighed two hundred pounds, but the Department of Motor Vehicles just put down whatever people chose to write in.

At that point Ruth hadn't been on a date in three years, despite her rare and wonderful smile, despite her kindness, patience, and warmth _and_ that she made delicious chicken with dumplings as light as feathers from scratch.

Her friends decided to hold an intervention. She_ wasn't_ plain, they told her. She _wasn't_ manly. She _wasn't_ too big. Okay, she _was_ big, but swimming had given her good muscle definition in her arms and legs, and any of them would die to have her figure, soft round tummy and all. She was gorgeous and some day, somebody was going to come along and recognize her for the goddess she was. She just needed a makeover and to dress more attractively. Whisking her off to a salon, they had the hairdresser give her coppery highlights and lowlights, trim and shape it flatteringly. Next, make-up, then a mani-pedi. Finally, since it was Halloween, they went to a costume store, where they all got dressed for a fantastic party.

At the party, she met Evan. He was six-three, about seven years older than she was, never married, no kids. His midriff was still fairly lean, his hair was going silver at the temples in a very distinguished way, and most importantly, he wasn't gay. A year and a half later, they got engaged, and a year after that, married. She wanted to go to Italy on their honeymoon. He wanted to go to Disneyland (they had been there together three times already.) She didn't want to be a Bridezilla, so to Disneyland they went. An unfortunate precedence, perhaps. Certainly a warning sign.

About six years later, six months before she entered Arkham City, she had settled into a reasonably content and happy life with Evan. Maybe the sex wasn't all that she had hoped for, plus he had lost some hair and his stomach was no longer lean (she was quite a good cook,) but still, they were together, they were happy, and her career, their savings and their prospects were at the point where she could plan to take a year off and have a baby. Waiting any longer could mean having fertility issues.

With all that happily fermenting in her head, one day she went to pick up Evan's repaired laptop, felled by a very unpleasant virus, and her life came crashing down.

_It would be easier if it were child pornography,_ she thought. _Not __**better**__, obviously. Just easier. Child pornography is __**evil.**__ You can fight evil. Or if it were just gay porn, I've coped with __**that**__ revelation before. __**Twice**__. But __**this**__…_ _How do you even dignify this by calling it a fetish?_ The once corrupted, now cleaned files were evidence of…of…_Well, technically copyright violation is a crime, but he isn't the one who originally committed it_.

An employee in the shop snickered, and was shushed by a co-worker. "Don't be a douche. She didn't know."

That snapped her out of it. "Right," She closed the laptop. "Clearly it's working again now. How much do I owe you?" She could not get out of there fast enough.

At home, Ruth went through his closet, his bedside table, finding more evidence, which she piled on the dining room table. She did not make dinner. Instead she made a pot of her favorite tea, sat down and drank it very slowly. When a key turned in the lock, she got up and walked deliberately to the foyer.

"Hey there, hon," Evan smiled at her. "I don't smell anything. Do you want to go out to ea—?"

"Do you remember what I was wearing when we first met?" she interrupted.

"Yes," his smile broadened. "You were wearing a Jessica Rabbit costume, purple gloves and all. You were the hottest—."

"Yes, yes, I know. It was very flattering. Of course, I was under the impression it was **me** you were attracted to. It comes as a very unhappy surprise to learn it was who, or _what _I was dressed like. _** Toon porn?! **_Your laptop was full of toon porn! Mickey Mouse doing things with Minnie, Donald, and Daisy Duck that….And don't try to tell me the virus installed it all because I checked the download history. We haven't had any kind of sex at all in over a year, and yes, I know you had the flu on our anniversary, but that was two months ago. We haven't had intercourse in three years! And I was feeling guilty because I bought a vibrator and used it when you weren't home!"

"Ruth, I—."

"I stopped trying to interest you in sex because I didn't want to make you feel inadequate when the Viagra and Cialis didn't work! And—and—you _know_ I have body image issues. I thought it was **me**! Then I find selfies of you…where and how did you even get a My Little Pony that size?!"

"But I do love you!" he pleaded. "I have never had sex with another person. Not once! This all is—it's just for fun—."

"It's a fetish!" She stopped for a moment, breathing hard. He kept on talking, trying to explain, defend, reassure, gabble gabble in her ears. "We're getting a divorce," she said. "Not because you have a toon fetish, but because in the nearly ten years that I have known you, you never _**trusted **_me enough to tell me what your kink was. I had to find out in the service department of Office Goods.

"You know something? If you'd told me, nine years ago, eight years ago, hell, even _five_ years ago, that your idea of mood music was the Animanics theme, and you'd_ really_ like me to dress up… I wouldn't have had any problem with it. I might even have gotten into it, because it was something we were doing _together_. But now? I am not about to have a family with a man who watches cartoons for fap material. Every time the TV went on and you sat down with the kids, I'd be creeped out. We can do this the civilized way, which is to separate and live apart for eighteen months. Or we can do this the nasty way, and not only does the court hear all about it—_your mother does too_."

Separating was easy. Living with the decision, as right as it was, was not. The next six months were brutal emotionally. Aliens could have landed, and she would not have noticed, much less a super-prison being built in the heart of the city. But when she _**did**_ notice, she spent one long sleepless night writing an article in which she explained why it was wrong, citing examples from history and from recent news. It was impassioned, well-reasoned, persuasive, compassionate, intelligently written—and before twenty-four hours had passed since she posted it on line, she was under arrest.

A/N: I faithfully promise the next chapter will include the Penguin and inflict no more toon related trauma on my readers. Speaking of whom—a _very_ big thank you to SwordStitcher, Tevinter, and Bat-Teen28.


	3. Ohhh, boy!

Unlike most of the Rogues' Gallery, the Penguin was nearly unique in that he was sane. Not for him the obsessions with the nature of chaos, fear, or the arbitrary nature of right and wrong. No, he was in it for money, power, respect, and what those things could bring him. For him, being inside Arkham City was a grand opportunity…

Except that Strange was playing games, with him, with the Clown, with other powers outside the City walls that he, Cobblepot, knew nothing about, and he had the sense that the game he and Strange were in was small stakes as far as Strange was concerned, and that irked the Penguin. It offended him.

_I'll have that smug git's teeth knocked so far down his throat he'll be chewing his food twice_, the Penguin thought as he returned to the Museum surrounded by his phalanx of men. The only problem, as far as he was concerned, with the status quo, Strange aside, was that he was sunk in an ocean of ugly and stupid.

Deirdre, his most recent assistant, was not only pretty and intelligent but smart as well and had opted not to be sealed up in prison with her boss and thousands of men. He didn't blame her for that, but he did miss her company a great deal. (The thug who had come up with the plan was in fact correct, but not just for the reason he thought.)

Three of his henchmen were hanging around the hall outside his office, grinning like monkeys. "You lads look as though you've been up to something," he rasped. "Out with it, before it's out with you."

"Well, Mr. Cobblepot, sir, because you're such a great boss and seein' as you do so much for us and it bein' past Thanksgiving, me and the boys have been lookin' out for something to give you in return. Kinda like a Christmas present. I know it's a few weeks early, but we found it, and, uh, it's waiting for you in your office. Right now." The thug waved at the door.

Giving the man a searching look, the Penguin used the handle of his umbrella to open the office door, just in case, standing to the side so any blast would hit the wall, not him. The henchmen were still smiling, their body language relaxed. He therefore risked a look in the door.

Since Gotham had cut off the natural gas to all prison areas, the Pinkney was difficult to heat properly. He and his henchmen kept their coats on in most areas, but the barracks and most especially his private quarters had space heaters, so it was warm in the office.

Someone was sitting in the visitor's chair, their bright blue coat thrown over the arm of it. First impression—brown eyes in a too-white face taut with stress. Shoulder length auburn-brown hair, a mouth with a delicately shaped upper lip and sensually full lower one—and as the door opened further she stood up. And up. His jaw dropped.

She was as tall as Batman and her figure made Catwoman look like a little girl who'd shoved a couple of oranges down the front of her jumper so she'd look like Mommy. The prison jumpsuit she wore was both too small and too short, and while it was doing its best to contain her, the zipper was parting company in rather important places, which she was trying to hold together. Nothing he could see of her was saggy or flabby, just soft and voluptuous as one of Ingres' odalisques in the Turkish bath, only rendered at one-and-a-half scale. She was…bloody **_magnificent_**.

"You found me a _woman_?"

"Not just any woman. We kept an eye out for weeks, knowin' you only settle for the best. Meet Ruth Lester, the newest inmate in these parts," his henchman nodded, grinning wider still, "and until last Friday, the reading teacher at Milton Elementary, now in Arkham City for reasons she's not sure of. Now I figure you'll want us to clear out, so that's what we're going to do. _**Good **_**_night_**, boss." With a suggestive waggle of his eyebrows, his henchman left, along with his friends.

He didn't bother learning his thugs' names until they'd distinguished themselves in some way. This might be the event which inspired him to ask. The Penguin closed the door behind him, put his umbrella away in the rack.

"S'alright, luv," he told the woman, who looked shell-shocked, but was scrambling to get back into her coat and zip it up, covering the jumpsuit's deficiencies. "You are in the safest place in Arkham City. Oswald Chesterfield Cobblepot, at your service. No need to be alarmed. Sit down, make yourself at home. Here. Let me get you a whisky. You look as though you need it."

He busied himself at the liquor cabinet, poured two stiff drinks and handed one to her.

"Thank you," she murmured, taking the cut crystal glass in both hands. "I'm Ruth Lester, as they said."

"I hope they behaved like gentlemen toward you on the way here," he said.

"They did," she said. "One of them is the unofficial stepfather of one of my students." She raised the glass, sipped the liquor and made a face.

"Just toss it back like it was medicine," he advised her, demonstrating.

"I—," She went ahead and did it, then coughed and spluttered. "I'm not much of a drinker. I—I'm sorry, but can I have something to eat? I'm so hungry I can't think right. Since Friday night, when I was arrested, all I've eaten was a plate of hash this morning. They put me in a cell and left alone me there all weekend—I thought no one was ever going to come back for me. I'm not even sure what I did….I never got a phone call or an attorney, no due process of law."

"That's terrible," he sympathized. It was Monday evening. Rough for her, seeing as she wasn't used to it, but nothing compared to what could have been. "Of course. Tell you what—I'll call down for dinner. It'll take a few minutes, and while it's on its way, my personal suite is through there. Go ahead and take a shower, I'm sure you'll feel better for it. There's fresh pajamas and a robe in the closet with the towels. Anything you need, go ahead and use, I don't mind."

"Thank you," she said, profound gratitude in her voice.

While she freshened up, he not only ordered dinner, he looked her up on line. Nothing about her being arrested, no missing persons report filed yet…her Facebook page bore out what he already knew about her—a few friends of hers had posted worried messages asking where she was. The latest, from that afternoon was posted by a Barbara G., who said that if she didn't hear from her by that night, she was going to her father. Who was Babs' father? Going back, he caught a terse mention of Ruth's husband, from whom she was separated. Her credit report was fine—but how the hell did people_ live_ on what they paid school teachers? Ah, there was a reference to a blog post about the prison—yet, strangely, (pun intended) no trace of the post itself. She'd pissed _somebody_ off.

The soup arrived as the shower shut off. He made sure as much as possible of the daily food deliveries from Strange went into his stores, and he had months worth of MREs stockpiled up against any shutdown of the current regimen, but made sure his men ate better than that. He ate better still—frozen gourmet meals, sent in weekly. The bathroom door opened.

"In here," he called from his dining room, really more of a nook off the living area. "I hope you're not allergic to shellfish, because it's lobster and scallop bisque. Please, come have a seat."

Ruth appeared, her hair in damp strands around her face, which had flushed pink from the steam. His pajamas were too short, but given that he was...portly, not too tight, and then of course the robe covered any places where buttons might not quite reach their holes. "I don't have any allergies. Thank you again—I feel so much better. Indeed, 'thank you' is inadequate for how I feel."

"It's nothing. Here," he held the chair so she could sit down. The fragrant, pale pink soup came in covered bowls like miniature tureens to keep it hot. "Don't let manners get the better of you, I know you're starving. And to go with it, something out of the ordinary. Tsuru no Sato, a junmaishu sake, the real thing, not the kind tricked up with rice syrup and preservatives. Sake goes better with seafood than wine—there's not many in America who know that. In the course of a misspent and self-indulgent life, I've come to appreciate all sorts of things you'd never think of, especially when you consider how I sound. Hah, to hear me speak, you'd think I was born and raised in the gutters of London, wouldn't you?"

She laughed even while she raised her spoon to her lips. Good. Very good. 'A maid that laughs is half taken,' some unnamed English poet had said, centuries ago. Put into modern terms, 'Make her laugh, and you're halfway into her knickers.'

"I hope I know better than to attach that much importance to an accent," she said. "Where did you grow up, if not within the sound of Bow Bells?"

"That's good. You know your accents, if you can pin Cockney down to that area. I'm from one of the finest old Gotham families, I am. Forty-odd years ago, when my folks shipped me off to the oh-so-posh boarding school that was tasked with the job of turning me into a gentleman, I sounded as American as anyone. I wasn't pleased about being sent away, and almost without exception, the professors started calling me 'You, the American,.' I started speaking in the only dialect that was lesser in their minds—a Cockney of the cheekiest sort, just to mess with them. 'American? Who do you mean, sir? Must be some other bloke, cause I an't American.' "

Again she laughed. "And _**you**_ slid on your schoolwork in order to teach your parents a lesson about sending you away, I'm sure."

Food, drink and warmth were reviving her. No make-up on her, and her skin was still like a peach's. Startling figure aside, would she be beautiful were this the outside world, with so many women to choose from? Perhaps not. One could argue that her chin and jaw were too strong, her eyebrows nearly invisible, her nose too wide, point out any number of flaws, but the smile—yes, her smile held up. And her eyes.

"Who, me?," he gestured to his chest, raising his eyebrows. " I don't know what you're talking about. But then my father went bust on what was left of the family fortune an' died. Without the money to keep me in that school or the grades for a scholarship, I had no choice but to leave. My mother wanted me home, but I stopped where I was. See, I could have gone home them, only to have everyone know what happened and go around feeling sorry for me, or I could stay there where no one knew me from Adam and continue my education in directions my folks never dreamed of. That meant the streets. I went to London and took up with a gang of louts like the ones I got hanging around this place, nothing but stuffing between the ears, and I convinced them they needed me, cause I was a planner and schemer even then…"

He told her a few of the more innocent anecdotes from that period of his life, making conversation, while they finished the soup. When the dumbwaiter arrived with the next course, lamb chops in a rosemary and mint sauce, together with roasted new potatoes and glazed carrots, she leapt up to exchange the plates, and he watched her. The pajama top gapped a bit between buttons, giving him a glimpse of breast here and there as she moved. Unless he was much mistaken, those were real, and still had plenty of perk and bounce left to them, for all of their fullness and size. So too, was her arse as pert and firm as any pair of buttocks he'd seen. She must work out, he concluded.

He was very much looking forward to the last course of the evening…

"So the accent is ingrained nowadays. Wake me up in the night, and I'd growl 'Something bloody well better be on fire!' " He paused while she laughed.

"But make no mistake," he concluded, reaching for a bottle of Shiraz to go with the change to meat, "What I'm talking about is not all done and over with. I never stopped breaking the law and I'm not a nice person. Consider where we are. I could have cleared out, but this is my home. I bought it off the city, and I paid good money for it. Gotham City was the one that reneged, and in return I ordered my lads to open fire on police officers. Veterans with families, too. Three of them were killed. That's what kind of person I am.

"I hope you don't think my men brought you here out of the goodness of their hearts, 'cause they didn't. They know I've been rather lonely, and you were the solution. That shows rather more thought and initiative than they've usually got. If they hadn't whisked you off, instead of these lamb chops and this Shiraz, you'd be lucky to get dog food, and right about now you'd probably be on your back or knees on a filthy mattress right now in some back alley, if you were still alive at all, servicing everybody and their friends. Even if you were already dead, they'd still be at you, cause this is the ugliest place on earth. Out there in the world, you're a person. In here, you're a commodity, one of the most valuable going, but a perishable one. Literally perishable.

"I said you were in the safest place in Arkham City, and you are. You're welcome to stay. I _want_ you to stay. But safety costs. Hot showers cost. Meals like this, warm rooms, a clean bed—all these things cost.

"I'm telling you this now so you have a chance to think it over. You can stay here and keep me company, grace my table and share my bed, and in return you'll get all those things I just mentioned. You'll be safe here. I won't hurt you and I won't let anyone else hurt you either. If we get along well, you'll find me generous beyond that. All I ask is this: Don't cheat, don't lie, don't steal. When I bed a woman, it's with her willing cooperation, and I understand sometimes you won't be that keen on it. Two nights off a week, say, as long as I get active participation the other five.

"Or you can go, take your chances out there and like as not, you'll be dead by morning, violated every way you can imagine and some you can't. Whoever you pissed off knows that: that's why you were sent in here in what amounts to a women's prison movie costume. They could have given you a man's prison jumpsuit and anorak—with your height and size, if you kept the hood up and your mouth shut, nobody would have sussed you for a girl. You were sent here to disappear for good. But in here, on the ground, I rule. As my woman, you'll be protected.

"The pudding course is crème brulee. I'm in hopes you'll have an answer for me by the time we've done eating."

* * *

A/N: Whew! This took some writing. I hope it lives up to the last chapter. Speaking of which, I want to thank Bat-teen28, Swordstitcher, who is working on a special guest chapter, (I squee in anticipation!) Querty, and Tevinter for their reviews.


	4. A Revelation

"Bruce…" Barbara Gordon spoke into her headset. "I have something I need for you to investigate. A friend of mine has gone missing. Her name's Ruth Lester. She teaches at Milton Elementary, and I've known her for nearly twenty years. She was a teen volunteer in our library when I was just a child. She introduced me to Harry Potter and Diana Wynne Jones. I'm really worried about her. Dad and the Department are investigating, but you have resources they don't."

"I'll look into it, Oracle," he replied tersely.

"**No**, Bruce, that's _**not** _enough. Not this time. A lot of friends gradually dropped me because I couldn't do all the things we used to do together, but Ruth didn't. The first week I was home from the hospital after being shot, she came over with cupcakes and a Jane Austen movie. While we watched it, she did my toenails in Angel Blush polish. Even though I was paralyzed and nobody but my family and caregivers would see my feet. It meant a _lot _that somebody remembered I was a girl. We've done something together nearly every week since then. She only knows some basic self-defense moves, nothing that would stop a psychopath."

"…Send me the details. And a picture of her."

One of the oldest stories in the world is the one about the King of the Underworld, who stole away a woman to be his and keep him company down in the darkness. She pines away in the eternal night of Hades, and up top someone is looking for her, someone with enough clout to get her released. However, by the time she's found, it's a little too late.

Some scholars may say it's an allegory about the seasons of great mythological significance, but it's not. It's a teaching story, meant to explain why you can't make _all_ the grain into bread and beer, no matter how hungry and sober you are. You _have _to save some of each harvest, dig holes in the ground and bury it if you want to have a _next _harvest. The lesson here is that people remember good stories better than they do cold hard facts, but the bigger picture shows that certain myths have a way of recurring, whether you like it or not.

* * *

_It's refreshing, in a way, this direct approach,_ Ruth thought while chewing a bite of lamb chop. _No months or years of hearts, flowers, and kisses while he's pretending and acting, only then, 'Ruthie, I—I'm so sorry, but I think I'm gay, and I don't want to be!' Or 'I don't know how to tell you this. I never meant to hurt you, I really thought if we got together I'd get over these feelings...' Or finding out he fantasizes about defiling the beloved cartoon characters of our collective American childhood. Just __'Keep me company, grace my table, share my bed'._

Maybe it was drinking so much more than she was used to, or maybe she was in shock and reality hadn't really hit her yet, or perhaps she was drunk on the first real meal after three days of near-starvation, but… _Curiously, I am okay with that_. And she was. She didn't find him sexually attractive, but she liked him. He'd gone to some effort to be witty, charming, and generous. He obviously didn't let anything stop him or slow him down, he was direct, honest, cheerful, and oddly enough, charismatic as well.

As for doing the deed itself with him—after several years in which Evan was less and less interested in having sex with her, and in which foreplay to get him there took longer and longer, she had learned to distance herself mentally to a certain extent. She was confident that she could cope—and that he actually wanted to have sex with **her **was a plus as far as she was concerned.

_Besides, as he pointed out, my choices are few and I have nothing else to bargain with besides my body._ It occurred to her that she should share her decision out loud. She swallowed the mouthful of food, and said, "I accept your offer. Thank you."

"Good! I'm glad that's settled. It will make the rest of the meal that much more pleasant. More wine?"

"Thank you, yes." She held out her glass. "I…have only been with three men, one of whom I was married to, and one at a time at that. Never with another woman. I knew I was straight by the age of twelve, so why experiment? I have no STIs. That's something you have to ask, these days. As for why I'm talking like this, I'm a little nervous. I never went from meeting someone to agreeing to have sex with them so swiftly before."

"Luckily, wine's been known to help with that," he said, filling her glass, quite unperturbed by her admission. "As for me, I lost track of how many women I've had a_long_ time ago. Three figures, easily, 'cause I've been at it forty years, give or take a few months. What's the point of being as rich as I am if you can't get it more or less whenever you like? The best reason for being wealthy, in my book. I never caught anything incurable and haven't got anything right now, so don't let that worry you."

"Have you ever been married?" she asked tentatively.

"Me? No. There've been several assistants of mine who were around a year, two years, before they moved on. If I've a job to be done that requires thinking, judgment, and reliability, I'm always going to have a woman do it, cause in my experience, women are smarter, more sensible, and steadier. With a couple of unhappy exceptions, all of them left me a lot better off than they were when we met. A lot o' them have their own businesses or companies these days, and a few have gone on to marry very well. Like I said, when I'm pleased, I'm prepared to be generous."

She nodded. "A year ago I wouldn't have wouldn't have said this, but I think you have the right idea. I can't recommend marriage. For me it was a bad investment of almost a decade, and I can't even call myself free for another year. I will never get that time back again. Enough about that, though. I think I know why I'm in here."

"Do you, now?" he shifted in his seat. "Why is that?"

"I wrote a blog article about this place. God, I hardly remember exactly what I wrote, it was five days ago now and I haven't slept properly since then—but I do remember I compared it to a concentration camp, pointing out that with the steel mill on site, it even has its own crematorium and that the Joker would no doubt be glad to supply the poisonous gas. I took a semester on the Holocaust, and one of the texts was a book called This Way For The Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen, by Tadeusz Boroswki. He was a survivor who went on to commit suicide.

"That book made a profound impact on me, because unlike Schindler's List and so many other popular representations of that time, it doesn't make the Holocaust out to be an ennobling triumph of the human spirit over prejudice and persecution. It was ugly, and the people who survived, especially those who survived the camps, were not the good, the meek and the innocent. One of the worst things the Nazis did to those in the camps was manipulate them into tormenting each other.

"There was more to it than that, but I finished it off by saying that in the end I wouldn't be surprised if the city wound up carpet bombing the area—did I say something wrong?" His face had suddenly gone blank, then twisted up in a spasm of rage.

"That maggoty shite-spewing weasel!" he exploded, "Screw knocking his teeth down his throat, it's going to be a dull skinning knife and gasoline for him…No, luv, I'm not mad at you. You just made everything come into focus. So, you posted this when, Thursday night?"

"More like very early Friday morning. At lunchtime, I looked to see if anyone had commented on it, and I couldn't bring the post up. At the time, I just thought there was something wrong with the site, but when I got home there were Tyger guards waiting for me in the dark."

"First they made what you wrote disappear, and then they did the same to you," he frowned. "Why did you write that bit about carpet bombing at the end?"

"That was the most horrific conclusion I could think of, that's all," she shrugged, which spread a smile on his face and sparked a gleam in his eye.

"Do _that_ again," he requested.

"I'll do one better," she replied, grateful for the change in topic, and unbuttoned the first button of the pajama top before she shrugged again.

It was not long before they finished the meal and retired to the bedroom.

* * *

Afterward, when Ruth was fast asleep, Oswald Chesterfield Cobblepot turned the bedside light on to its dimmest setting, reached for a cigar, and lit it. No fear of waking her: between the whisky, the meal, the wine, what they had done together, and that this was her first real night's sleep following her arrest, she was not about to wake easily or quickly.

He already felt tremendously fond of her. He could not readily remember a time when it was sweeter or hotter than it was with her, and this was only the start. _What sort of witless wanker __**is **__that husband she's divorcing? _

Collecting a few garments and putting on his slippers, he padded back into his office, where he searched again for that blog post of hers. Once something was up on the internet, it never really went away. You just had to dig deeper. Certain media entities took snapshots of how pages looked at a particular time and stored them, preserving content that way. Nothing—_Strange is going to a lot of trouble to erase this one_. Still, he knew someone who was apt to be better at finding than the professor was at hiding. He sent a message to the Riddler about finding the post, and while he was thinking of it, began one to his lawyer inquiring what might be done to speed up that divorce.

Halfway through he thought better of it and deleted it. Best not to do anything to draw Strange's attention. Let him think he succeeded. To that end, he used the PA system and called for the three lads who had brought him his early Christmas present to come to his office. While waiting for them to arrive, he got down a fresh bottle of Johnnie Walker Black and went to the safe, where he got out seventy thousand in ten thousand dollar bundles.

"Well done, lads," he congratulated them when they were all lined up in front of his desk, looking for all the world like dogs who've heard the treat box rattle. "I like my Christmas prezzie a lot, indeed I do. I also like that you planned and saw it through on your own. I know you worked together, but whose idea was it?"

He gave three bundles to the idea man, two each to the others, and accepted their thanks graciously. "You've caught my eye now, and no mistake. What I want to know is, can you also be discreet? Yes, you found me a woman, that you can cop to, but the details like her name, what she does for a living, anything unusual about her—all those escape you from here on in. What happened after you brought her here? You don't know. There's nothing wrong at all, quite the reverse, and I want things to stay that way. Get me?" The last two words he roared, to show he meant it.

"Yessir,"

"Good. Here, a token of my esteem, to drink the lady's health." He pushed the whisky toward them. "Now clear out. I plan to play with my new toy some more before morning."

They left; he returned to his computer. Riddler had come through. There was a copy of that blog. The Penguin read it through twice.

He knew Strange had some ulterior motive in giving him all the weapons, all the military-grade gear, all the supplies he asked for. He knew there was some bigger game the wanker was playing, and all his suspicions, all the loose ends had coalesced when Ruth said 'carpet bombed.' Something else to thank her for, in the morning. Strange was playing them all against each other.

This called for a meeting under the white flag. Two-Face, certainly. Riddler, yes, he was useful as a neutral as far as the gangs were concerned. Black Mask, if he'd recovered enough. Hatter and Scarecrow? Perhaps not. Nobody wanted to be seeing sounds, hearing smells, tasting colors and coping with whatever nasties their subconscious brewed up. Catwoman and Poison Ivy? Why not? They would raise the tone of the assembly if nothing else. Killer Croc? No. He had his shark Tiny for garbage disposal and explosives if he needed something demolished, and Croc was good for little else. Freeze—the best way to ensure you had his attention was to get hold of Nora Fries' corpsicle. Find out where she was, and the rest was just details.

That left only one. The Clown. If only he'd hurry up and die…

* * *

A/N: Well. Whew. I allude to the myth of Persephone in the first part, but I bet more than ninety percent of you knew that already. Many thanks to Swordstitcher, Miss Singing in the Rain, Tevinter, and my guest reviewer. Also to those who favorited or added to their Alerts.


	5. Unbelievable

Ruth waking up: First, the diagnostics. Pain? _None_. Imminent threats? _None apparent_. Too hot/cold/wet/confined? No to all of those. Hungry/thirsty/sick/in need of a toilet? Yes/yes/no/yes, but not an emergency. Booting up the next stage. _Do I know where I am? Do I know who this is in bed with me? Do I remember what I did last night? _

_Yes, yes, and yes._

She opened her eyes, blinked at the room. Decorated in Gotham Gothic Revival Style, the furniture was dark mahogany, massive, and carved like the carpenter got paid by the hour—in other words, he took his time and every inch was fancy. The wardrobe looked as though by all rights it should have another country hidden in the back, and if the unbelievable bed canopy collapsed it would probably either crush the occupants outright or suffocate them slowly in their sleep. Either way, fatal.

A hint of cigar in the air put an end to any lingering muzzy haze. "…oh, god…"

"Now that's a familiar phrase," a Cockney accented voice said cheerfully as an arm snaked around her waist . "No need to be so formal though, luv. Just call me Ozzie."

She couldn't help it; she snorted in laughter.

"I got to say, I was not expecting quite that level of enthusiasm last night," he went on. "You went beyond being an active participant to the point where I was wondering who was taking advantage of who. You had at me like that plate of lamb chops last night."

"….should I apologize?"

He smiled; she could not see his face, he hadn't said a word yet, nor chuckled, but she could feel him smile all the same. "You made me very happy, luv." He followed that with a kiss to the back of her neck.

"…Likewise. I wasn't expecting us to be quite so compatible, but then again with your history—over a hundred women—you must have it down to an art." She leaned back into him, enjoying the warmth, enjoying being held.

It wasn't merely flattery on her part. She had made her mind up to endure whatever happened, and then realized it was going to be all right. More than all right. He liked her body, and praised it warmly and in lewd but friendly detail. What was more, he could prove it, unlike Evan. It was…healing. Ruth had told herself was not fat and old and undesirable, that Evan's fetish was Evan's problem and nothing to do with her, but on some level she had never convinced herself.

It was ridiculous, of course. In the real world, the cigars and the fact that he was so much older than she was would have been deal-breakers alone, never mind his reputation.

"There's more to it than that, luv," he said. "But now I've got a question. How come none of your three exes did right by you between the sheets?"

"My first boyfriend back in high school is now happily married with two kids he and his _husband_adopted from India," she explained. "My second boyfriend hasn't yet found the right guy or guys yet, but he's still looking. All I can say is, I was trying to find someone who didn't see me as _**just**_ a sex object, and went a little too far in the opposite direction."

He chuckled at that. "What about the bloke I'm technically cuckolding? Surely you didn't make the same mistake a third time?"

"Oh, no, I made an entirely different one. His name's Evan, Evan Guth-Miller. I didn't take his last name because I just couldn't face life as Ruth Guth, even with 'Miller' on the end of it. Well, the sex was good at the start, or at least okay… in retrospect. Over the years, he got less and less interested in having sex with me, and none of the usual medications worked.

"The problem is, he…had a fetish. I didn't learn about it until six months ago when I went to pick up his laptop at the repair place.

"They told me it was a virus that rode in on some dubious files. Then they showed me what they were…At first I thought it was just a kids' cartoon, but instead of 'Warner Bros.', it was by 'Porner Bros.' You know how in cartoons, when somebody's thumb gets hit by a hammer, it swells up until it's the same size as their entire body, and throbs visibly? It was like that, only it wasn't a hammer and what got hit _wasn't_ a thumb…"

That made Ozzie laugh until he half choked. "_That's_ what he likes to wank it to?"

"Don't laugh! Well, okay, you can laugh, but it was very distressing at the time. I mean, I'm not that unsophisticated. If it had been some of that Japanese animated porn, that would have been one thing, but whoever made it used familiar children's cartoon characters…and my husband collected cartoon toys and things as his hobby. Every vacation, we had to go to some theme park or other. I thought it was innocent, and it was sweet how he still had some of that childlike wonder left.

"Anyhow, I'm divorcing him not so much because he's kinky but because he never trusted me enough to tell me and because he had no interest in sharing that aspect of his life with me. I hate being left out, don't you?"

"Absolutely!" He laughed a little more. "His problem was, I'd bet, that he wanked it more than he had sex. In my day, they still used to tell you you'd go blind or grow hair on your palms. That isn't true, but they still ought to warn lads off too much wanking. Do too much, and it gets so nothing else works, and then a lad has to have extra fuel to get his engine going. Not every engine goes on petrol or diesel, so to speak."

"And you don't wank it often or at all, so that's why you…get such good mileage?" she asked.

"I can't say I _never_ do it, but I've never made a_ habit_ of it. Don't want to lose my appreciation for the finer things in life," he patted her hip. "It's much nicer and friendlier to have company."

"It is," she agreed. "and nice as it is to lie here with you like this…I have to go to the bathroom."

He chuckled again, releasing her. "if you must, then hurry back." She slipped out of the bed and headed for the relevant door.

"You have a_ devastating_ arse, luv," he called after her.

When she returned, he was on the phone roaring at someone. Nearly frothing at the mouth, in fact.

"So what if he's too ill to attend?! He can bloody well Skype, can't he? Are any of you lot even sure he's still alive? Nobody's seen his pustulant hide for weeks, all anyone can say is they've heard his voice and that could be a blasted recording!...All right, yes, Harley could never pull the wool over anybody's eyes if he were dead, they'd hear her wailing her bloody head off in Bludhaven. Hah, bloody head and Bludhaven, that's a laugh, innit?

"Anyhow, I'll not have her in my Lounge, not alive, anyhow. It'll have to be set up on neutral territory. Where? The Mile, a'course. Yes, it's half underwater, I know that, you wanker! There's still buildings left sticking out of the water. The Olympus, for one, that'll do. Might even be some good salvage in there. Make it happen. Find some bloody rowboats if there's no other way!"

He was clearly very focused on that call, so she retreated to the kitchenette. There was a hot plate with two burners, a microwave, and a refrigerator, so she went through everything, finding tea, dried fruit, oatmeal, smoked salmon, and other things. Such a familiar task, making a cooked breakfast. How many weekend breakfasts had she made for herself and Evan? She'd thought she was his wife, but she was just his damned housekeeper.

It wasn't possible to hold on to that bitterness, not this morning. In the face of illegal imprisonment in a prison that made Guantanamo look home-like, her marital disaster shrank in proportions

In the other room, matters seemed to be winding down. "About that other matter I mentioned—I want something out of the ordinary, you understand? Good." He ended the call.

"A bit of business before breakfast, luv. You see, I had a dekko round the internet last night. Lots of people have had their say about Arkham City, many of them even less complimentary than yours, and most of them haven't wound up here—not yet, anyhow. Only the ones who had some civic clout, ones who could do him some real harm with the Council. Except you. What's so different about your article?

"What I believe is, you shot an arrow in the air when you wrote 'carpet bombing', and without knowing it, you skewered Strange right in the bum. It so happens that Strange has been supplying me with military gear, same as his Tygers use, and all kinds of little trinkets he strictly speaking shouldn't be. It didn't make sense—until you turned up. So I'm arranging a meeting of all the major players. Oh—here. Better safe than sorry, luv."

He held out a box of over-the-counter medication—emergency morning-after contraception. She took the box, read the instructions. "I was on the Pill, but the last time I took it was Friday morning—so this is very wise. Thank you. I'll take it with breakfast, it'll be less likely to upset my stomach that way."

"Right," he nodded. "After breakfast, I want you to sit down and make a list of what you need—medicine, clothes, shoes, your sizes and measurements and such. I've contacts who can get anything I want from the outside, and you can't be hanging around in my robe all the time. Not that it doesn't suit you. Especially hanging open the way it is…" He snuck a hand in for a quick caress.

"I will—but, um…as far as clothing and shoes go, your contact will be out of luck. I haven't been able to buy off-the-rack since I was in my teens, not even at Lane Bryant. I take a size twelve wide shoe, and the in-seam on my pants has to be at least 38 inches. I'm too tall. Too tall and too big."

"_No_, you're _not_. You are bloody _perfect_, luv. Like my own private roller coaster, steep and curvy. What a treat…" He beamed at her. Beamed was the only word for it. He was…this was ridiculous. She was happy, because he was complimenting her, because in bed together it had…it had _worked_. He was too old and too fat, and not conventionally attractive at all, not to mention all the other issues such as being a major crime lord and blackmarketeer…

_He looks the way I felt_, she realized_. Old and fat and undesirable. Maybe that's part of it. Don't we all want to be wanted? To be loved?_

"Talk like that, and the oatmeal will get burned…" she warned him. _This is too much to deal with before food_.

"I've a solution to that problem—the clothes, not the oatmeal. After all, you've everything at home, haven't you? Here, let me have that tea pot. Americans don't know how to make a proper cuppa…"

* * *

A/N: The following section is written by guest ficcer SwordStitcher, who sent Riddler's henchwoman Dead Switch on an errand to the outside world. It is great. So is she.

* * *

It was one of those places which the word "Suburban" was made to fit. The streets were littered with just the right amount of snow, the decorations tasteful and full of Christmas spirit, and the paintwork bright and unchipped in the winter air. The structures paced equally apart reminded her of gingerbread houses topped with sparkling icing.

Dead Switch took in the idyllic cul-de-sac around her. She shouldn't even be here, but Penguin paid exceptionally well for what he wanted and Switch needed the money, lord knows she needed it. She was also highly interested in the woman he'd picked up. Normally the politicals had about as much chance of survival in here as a chocolate tea kettle. Especially the female ones.

This one had been a teacher; she remembered doing the background check while Nigma hunted down the original article. What does one say to get thrown into Arkham City?

It wasn't too far away from the rendezvous though, which was handy. The TYGER 'copter was still an hour out from pick up and her business, Riddler's business had been concluded early.

Which of the many frosted houses was it? Ah yes. That one. The one with the unswept porch and the smattering of soggy leaves over the snow.

It was like something out of a Christmas film and it made her cringe with unfamiliarity. This wasn't her world and she felt out of place. Wrong in a world of right. But then, it was always like that, wasn't it?

The gate struggled open against the snow and stuck. The path was only slightly treacherous; the frozen puddles were hidden under a layer of snow. Finally, Switch skipped up the porch steps. She looked left and right to establish there were going to be no witnesses.

Gently, she slipped a hand into her pocket and pulled out several wires. It was the work of a moment to push them into the keyhole and begin to pick the lock. What a tough lock it was; it was designed to resist lock-picking. Of course no lock was totally resistant to the manipulation of it's tumblers, but this one was practically obstinate. She felt herself grow irritated with the lack of headway when a voice sounded out from her left.

'Can I help you, young lady?' An old woman, clad in everything woolly was stood on the porch next door, watching her owlishly from between a bright green scarf and a magenta hat. The wrinkles in her face were set with suspicion.

Where had she come from? Improvise. Quickly. Switch needed a reason to be here, trying the door at mid-day when everyone else was at work or school. Ruth had been a teacher, right?

'Um…Hi. Sorry. I'm Ruth's TA. I heard she had a bit of trouble and had to take a sudden break. Only…She left her teaching notes.'

The wires went back into her pocket.

'Oh yes. Poor thing. Poor thing. She was taken to the new super prison you know… I saw them take her.'

Gossipy old bat.

'You don't mean Arkham City?' Switch gasped.

'The very same. They took her in the middle of the night; poor thing barely had time to get a coat on.'

Definitely a gossipy old bat. Her tone was too maliciously gleeful as she described it. Still, she could be useful. Switch's hand came out with a random key and waved it in the air.

'Can you help me out? Do you have a spare? My key doesn't seem to be working. I really need those notes. For the kids.' She grimaced with a pleading tone.

'Oh? Oh yes I think I do. If it's for the kiddies of course.'

Fucking kiddies. Was there a better excuse?

The old lady began to mutter to herself as veiny legs, hidden from view by a long dark skirt and thick socks shuffled cautiously down the snow.

'You've probably got the old key, I suspect.' The woman nattered as she manoeuvred around the snowy gate and began a slow crawl up the shin deep path.

'Probably.' Switch agreed.

'She turfed him out months ago of course. Changed all the locks.'

The old lady finally made it up the stairs in what felt like an eon later. She rummaged around in her huge purse and finally came up with a rung of keys that seemed never ending. There must have been dozens of them.

She paused as she worked through the keys and gave Switch a piercing glare. 'I'm surprised you didn't know that she changed the locks.'

'Ruth is a very…Private person at work. It's all about the kiddies.' Switch lied easily as she watched the heavily woolly fingers tick keys off. How long is this going to take? She moves like a dinosaur.

'Well, I'm not surprised dear, what with the filth her husband was mixed up in; I'd be ashamed for others to know, too!'

Then why the hell are you telling me, you old bat?

Switch was beginning to take a dislike to the old woman standing next to her. She smelled like rotting lavender and cigarette smoke, which was a disgusting mix of odours. The way she talked about Ruth was malicious too, though she would bank her life savings on the fact that the sad old bitch probably spoke less than ten words to her neighbours every year. 'Ah, here it is.' The key slotted easily into the lock and it opened effortlessly.

She entered an almost pristine foyer and glanced around with a critical eye.

Coat hooks missing coats, an umbrella stand almost empty. Bits and pieces that looked as though they should be there weren't. Pictures especially.

'Shall I wait here and lock up after you, dear?' The old bat asked generously. Having her around would make it impossible for Switch to gather what she'd been told to get and not draw suspicion to herself.

Hmmm.

'No, no. Ruth must have a spare around here. I'm sure you've got some shopping to do. You've been such a help.' Switch simpered.

'I rather think I should stay, just to make sure.' The old biddy gave Switch a calculating look. 'Don't want you going through the poor thing's possessions for workroom gossip, now do we?'

But you were just gossiping about it to me! Switch whined to herself.

Ugh. She'd tried to be nice.

'Maybe you should stay.' Switch agreed as she reached behind her to close the door. She locked it too. The key came out and was in her pocket within seconds.

'What are you doing? Why have you locked the door?' The old lady was finally beginning to realise that something was wrong and her pitch was steadily rising. Joker's voice did that too and it annoyed Switch far more than it should have done. It was like someone drawing their nails down a chalkboard and forcing her to listen.

She really wasn't going to feel bad about this. Hell, it was practically charity.

Switch removed her coat and boots and stashed them; it was only polite if she was going to be here for a while not to trample muddy wet footprints throughout the house. She didn't want to get blood anywhere that would show either.

When the woman caught sight of the scarf that had been concealed by Switch's coat, she looked like she was going to pass out. 'Oh lawd in heaven.' She whispered.

She turned and began to push and pull at the door in fright, but it was no good, she'd witnessed Switch lock it. When that failed to work, she pressed herself against the wood like she could escape via Osmosis. Her face was rapidly draining colour as her mouth worked away to itself noiselessly.

Switch untied the cloth around her throat and wrapped an end around each fist, it wouldn't make an effective garrotte, but then again it wasn't going to take much effort once she had it around her neck to choke the life out of her. Switch was more likely to crush the daft old bitch as she applied pressure than choke her, but whatever worked in the end. As long as the old biddy was dead. She approached the terrified woman cautiously, aware that the older generation were particularly feisty.

'You stay away from me! You stay away! You- …' The old lady froze, her face as white as parchment. A croak so small it was almost unheard by Switch slipped out of her mouth and she sagged to the floor.

Switch moved closer, but only enough to prod a leathery leg with her foot. It wouldn't be the first time an OAP had pulled the "sudden illness" card on her. She didn't move. Eventually, Switch grew braver and moved closer to inspect what had happened.

The old woman's eyes were open, staring blankly at the ceiling. She wasn't breathing. There was no pulse.

Well. Did that still count as murder? Either way I'm going to have to leave the rotting bitch there until I get what I came for.

Switch left the corpse in the foyer. She'd move it after she collected what she came for. She felt irritated that the old woman had basically become more work for her, but she didn't have to murder the bitch. She had just wanted to. If she had felt particularly cruel she could have tied her to the staircase and left her to starve or freeze to death but then she just had to have a heart attack and die anyway. At least this way it couldn't be linked to her, but she still felt a little cheated.

She really should have just left when told to, the snooping old hag.

The rooms were far from being neat as the foyer had been, they looked as though someone had conducted a hurried search and they were all missing items. She could see the shadows the items had left. Well, they weren't shadows per-se. rather the opposite. A patch of wall or wood a lighter shade than that surrounding it.

There were a lot. Switch had to wonder if that was the result of the search or if it had happened beforehand.

It was a nice house, tastefully decorated as far as she could see. Again, she had the feeling that this place was picture perfect, a home out of a movie, a perfect house, or it would have been if TYGER had bothered to clean up after themselves.

What a bunch of slobs.

Her foot connected with a lamp that lay pitifully on the floor. She pulled a pair of latex gloves from her pocket and slipped them on before she picked it up and centred it on the end table by the door. Any other god damn thug would have trashed the place a little more, stolen a few personal items and destroyed everything they weren't taking on general principles but Riddler hated leaving things like that. It just wasn't professional.

Switch had been taught to take her time, clean up after herself and leave things as tidy as they'd been found. Habits like that were hard to break.

To satisfy her curiosity, she wandered through the house on a grand tour. Ruth was a very neat and organised lady, she could tell that over the chaos of the search. Everything was clean and shiny; everything had a place, even if it'd been moved and then haphazardly replaced. Even her knicker drawer was organised, or had been. Switch had never met anyone who organised their unmenionables. She was going to fit right in.

There was more evidence of missing things. Switch had come to expect the conspicuous voids.

She wasn't being paid to indulge her curiosity, however. Switch checked her watch. The helicopter was due to pick her up in forty five minutes, after it's refuelling had completed which gave her a half-hour window to get the stuff and pose the snooping old biddie's body outside.

For once, plenty of time.

She looked everywhere for a suitable container. A suitcase maybe. There had to be one somewhere in this goddamn house. It was the house of a woman, wasn't it?

She checked everywhere. The only thing she could find was a Disneyland duffle bag emblazoned with the iconic castle stuffed under the bed, like it had been forgotten. It was going to have to do.

Switch methodically went through the bedroom first; it held the largest assortment of items that had been requested.

The wardrobe was occupied only on one half, large dresses and shirts hung on one side, slightly askew thanks to the indifferent searchers. The other held bare hangers stuffed into one corner. The chest of drawers was much the same way, as she already knew. One half of a drawer, occupied and the other empty.

She scooped clothes carefully and stacked them in neat little rows inside the bag until most of the drawers were now totally empty. She moved on to the dressing table and considered what a woman chucked into a prison would want in beauty products. She then considered the fact the woman was easily twice Switch's size, both vertically and horizontally. Take everything. She decided and flung powders, foundation, blush, mascara and anything else she could get her hands on into a smaller bag. She tossed that on top of the neat rows of clothing in the duffle.

Jewellery was given the same treatment as Make-up. It was considered that maybe only a few pieces were needed and then the entire box of trinkets was dumped into a smaller bag to go with the make-up on top of the pile. Several bottles of expensive perfume joined them.

Ruth owned several pairs of shoes. Each served a different purpose. Trainers, flats, court shoes with a less than delicate heel and wellingtons too. They were all several sizes too large for Switch and they looked custom made to order, she was probably going to need them. In they went.

Was that everything? What else had been specifically called for? If she was going to do a job, she was going to do it properly after all. If she hadn't then it was entirely likely that Penguin would make his grievances clear on her face.

Switch caught sight of the bathroom.

Ah yes. Toiletries.

She went through the en-suite bathroom, pulling out anything that may be of some use or had been requested. Shampoo, conditioner, bathrobe, pads and tampax, prescription bottles, deodorant and talcum powder sailed into the bag. It was starting to fill up quickly. If there was any more to take, Switch was going to need an entirely new bag.

There was one cupboard she hadn't raided yet, however and had overlooked on her initial walk through. It was padlocked. The wires came back out and within minutes the lock sprang open.

It was filled, absolutely filled, with cartoon stuff. A lot of it. Not just cartoon stuff either. Photographs and ornaments, the missing pieces of the household. Every one showed a very tall, very…robust woman and a man older than her smiling into the camera. A number at the forefront showed them wearing Mickey and Minnie Mouse ears.

Ohkay. Someone has an obsession. Is this what that old biddy had been getting at? Maybe she shouldn't have opened this one.

She closed the doors and relocked it. Guilt was not something that was encouraged in her line of work, but she did feel a little bad for inadvertently blundering into something Ruth had hidden, insofar as picking the lock on the door can be considered inadvertent.

The duffle was fit to bursting anyway.

Ten minutes to go.

Switch slipped back into her boots and yanked on her coat before she remembered the corpse.

She had to remember Locard's principle here, the old woman had died of natural causes, but a hair or fibre from her or her scarf would raise an immediate red flag. The scarf went away, her hair was tied back. She still had her gloves on; she'd worn them throughout the house. Risk of fingerprints was minimal. The old lady was far from light, but she made it down the path and across to the other gate easily enough. She left the corpse there by the gate but made sure to scuff up the snow to avoid some of the more painfully bright Gotham cops from noticing the drag marks and putting two and two together.

The house was easy enough to lock up. On time Switch and her laden duffle were heading to the rendezvous for pick up, by now the helicopter would have been refuelled and Switch could hitch a lift back into hell.

The duffle was dropped lightly onto the icy roof and not long after that, Switch's boots made contact. What little snow that had managed to collect on it was blown off by the ever noisy aircraft propellers above her.

The minute she'd hit the floor, the helicopter was rising, off on it's regular patrol like nothing had happened. It had only hovered near enough to the roof for her to get off without breaking a bone anyway.

People were so easy to manipulate. Forty grand was all it took to buy silence, and unlimited lifts under the radar. At least until they got greedy. Then it was all that it took to rig a bomb under a helicopter.

Still, it had been a straightforward day. Get some information, grab a duffle full of stuff, get paid, don't die. The old lady had been a slight bump but nothing Switch wasn't capable of handling.

She should drop the duffle off before she reported in. Penguin's place was spitting distance from where she'd been let off anyway.

She greeted some of the guards on duty as she skipped up the escalator and towards the Iceberg. They waved her through once they saw the bag and scarf. Evidently, Penguin had warned them she would be passing through otherwise she'd have been staring down the barrel of a gun.

The duffle was heavy but she was glad to be out of the wind. In a grim way, she was happy to be home in the pit of sin and depravity that was Arkham City. She found it much easier to deal with people when you could see their flaws and quirks on the surface rather than the suburban hell she'd spent an hour in.

This Ruth, whoever she was, had to have made an impression on Penguin for him to practically throw money at her to haul some stuff. She must also have a strong stomach because, hell. It's Penguin.

You couldn't pay Switch enough for that!

* * *

Again, an A/N: I would be remiss if I did not also thank Bat-teen28, Tevinter, Golden Naginata, and doubly, Swordstitcher. Virtual Hershey Kiss cookies for all!


	6. Passing The Bechdel Test

The title of this chapter refers to a comic by Alison Bechdel, a formula by which she chooses what movies to see. To pass, a work has to have: 1. At least two women in it with actual names. 2. They must talk to each other. 3. Their conversation must be about something besides a man. The Bechdel test has made its way into popular culture and gender studies classes. It is not a reliable indicator that a work is feminist, but the number of works that fail the test sure says something about our storytelling.

Extra-special guest star Dead Switch belongs to Swordstitcher, and I hope I do her justice.

* * *

There was not much Ruth could do without clothes—well, there actually was a lot she could do without clothes, including pan-frying fish, but once you learned how much grease spattered and how painful hot grease is, only the very masochistic would try that twice, and she wasn't that much of a glutton for punishment. Wandering around the halls of a museum turned into a fortress was not one of the things she was about to do unclothed, not when most of the building wasn't heated and there were a lot of heavily armed convicts also roaming the halls.

Since exploring the Pinkney was not an option, which also neatly avoided the question of how far the Penguin's declared protection really extended, or whether she was allowed out of his rooms at all, Ruth first rearranged his wardrobe and dresser to make room for her things, when they would arrive, and that being done, she found a copy of an old, old friend among his books: The Count of Monte Cristo.

She could mentally slip into and out of Dumas as easily as a well-broken-in pair of loafers, and that was what she did, curling up in his chair until a knock at the door called her out of Edmond Dantes' world.

"Excuse me. My name is Dead Switch. Penguin had me go get your things for you—." The voice was _female_.

"Oh! Just a moment," She retied Oswald's robe around her (the satin was slippery and wouldn't stay put) in case someone else was lurking out in the hall, and opened the door.

Dead Switch was in her twenties, lean almost to the point of being undernourished, fox-wary expression on her face—will it be a kick I get or a kindness? Or nothing at all? A bright green muffler emblazoned with question marks at her throat explained both why she was in Arkham City and how she survived. The young woman blinked as she looked first at Ruth's cleavage (yeah, the robe had slipped again). Male or female, gay or straight, when the girls were on show, that was where the eyes went first—then up at her face.

"You are not what I expected," she said bluntly.

"What were you expecting?"

"Somebody who looked...I don't even know. Either traumatized or tougher. More teacherly, anyway. Not a plus-size lingerie model, and not…happy. Although probably I should have expected the first part of that, because there had to be a reason Penguin—."

A draft from the corridor chilled Ruth's legs, and she opened it wider. "Can you come in and stay for a little while? It's freezing out there, and I'd…really like to talk." Another person with an XX chromosome pair? In here? Damn right she wanted to talk.

"Thanks. I can hardly remember what it's like to be properly warm. Besides, I haven't been paid yet."

Switch sidled past her, avoiding body contact. Dangling off her shoulder was that horrible Disney duffle Ruth had stuffed under the bed. Well, what else was there left in the house to pack things in? Evan had taken all the luggage. She passed it over as Ruth closed the door. "Here you go. I think I found everything on the list."

"Thank you—I'm just going to step into the next room and put on some clothes."

"That's okay with me…Um, were—_are_ you fond of your next-door neighbor, the woman who looked like she slept in her clothes?" Switch raised her voice to be heard through the door.

Switch had been neat and careful in packing. Ruth had no problem in laying out her things. A favorite sweater, a knee length skirt, underthings…Ah, there was a full-support bra, just the thing to get the weight off her chest and redistributed over her shoulders and back. She put it on back to front around her waist to make clasping it easier, then slid it around, looping her arms through the straps, and shrugged it up into place. _Much_ better!

"Mrs. Cook? No. She's as honest as the day is long, but she's..." Ruth thought of all the things she would like to say about the woman, and went for the most charitable. "not in the best of health and her children don't visit often, so she's lonely and…resentful. Which is sad, but she overstepped limits. We let her put her trash and recyclables in with ours because she was so old, but I'm sure she took advantage of that to snoop on us through what we were throwing out. And I think she took a pair of clippers to my clematis vines even though they were growing on my trellis and not on her fence. Why? Did she say something to you? I wouldn't be shocked to hear she did."

"She knew you were rousted out by Tyger guards in the night and brought here," Switch said. "but she didn't seem to know why or to have done anything about it. And she also knew you chucked your husband out for doing something filthy, but she was hazy about the details."

"She did—? All I ever told her was that we'd grown apart. Oh." The day she'd confronted Evan had been warm. She had opened the windows to air out the house, and if Mrs. Cook had hers open too… "She must have been eavesdropping. I wonder how she managed not to pry it all out of me. Except that the last six months have been…unreal."

There, she was dressed, down to tights and shoes. ` She went back into the office to find Switch warming herself on the floor by the heater for all the world like a cat her family had when she was a child.

"The good news is, you won't have to worry about her prying any more," Switch said, getting to her feet. "The bad news is that, um." She winced. "Did you know she had a weak heart?"

"Yes, it was one of her health problems and…she's dead. That's what you're trying to tell me." Ruth shook her head like she was trying to oust some cobwebs.

"Yes. It _was_ an accident…but I did have my hands around her throat at the time."

"I've been tempted to do that myself a few times," Ruth muttered in reply. "Nobody will miss her very much, sad to say."

"Was everything in the bag okay? Nothing broken, nothing important left out?" Switch asked.

"No, it was fine." An awkward silence sprang up and grew until they punctured it with a laugh.

"So—how did you manage to wind up in here?" Dead Switch asked.

"I wrote something Professor Strange didn't like," she shifted her weight from one leg to the other. "I'd go into further detail, but I believe Oswald is going to unveil it in a special peace conference and I don't want to spoil it. You know…if this was a regular day, right about now I'd be with Miss Walters' class of second graders, getting them settled down. My life has altered so much."

"You seem to be taking it pretty well," Switch observed. "I mean, you may be about to have a huge psychotic break and start laying into people with a sharpened ruler at any moment, but I doubt it."

"A _sharpened ruler_?" Ruth snorted.

"It was the first teacher-like thing I could think of." Switch shrugged. "And don't knock it until you're desperate and there's nothing else at hand. I've used worse shivs than that."

"Hm. That's…something I'll keep in mind. Anyway, as far as breakdowns go—Since Friday night, I've been stripped of all my civil rights and liberties, left entirely alone in a cell for over forty-eight hours without food or anyone looking in on me at all, thrown into Arkham City, selected by some thugs as a present for their boss, and become the kept woman of a notable black marketer and crime lord. By all rights I should have had a meltdown of some kind by now, and…I keep thinking, all right, so it hasn't really sunk in yet. When it does, I'll cry and rage and storm…yet with every moment that goes by, with every hour that passes and it doesn't happen, I wonder if it's going to happen at all. Is something wrong with me? Or…I don't know what."

"As I said, you seem to be taking this pretty well," Switch said. "Maybe too well." She glanced around the office. "Somebody has to tell you this, and it might as well be me. Your life as it was is over. Even if Batman or a SWAT team crashed in here right now to rescue you and take you far, far away from here, you'll never get back the life you had before.

"You're part of this life now, with the Rogues' Gallery and the villains fighting the Batman, and you'll never be free of it completely. Things will happen that draw you back in, like it or not. I know: I've been there. I was involved just marginally with something that had to do with Clayface. Then Joker picked me as a hostage, framed me as an accomplice, and his lies were more plausible than my truth. Now I'm henching for Riddler and moonlighting as an errand girl for Penguin on the side. The only way I'll ever get out is dead, and maybe not even then."

Ruth smiled wryly. "Would you like something hot to drink? I think there's hot chocolate mix in the kitchenette."

"I'd love that. Thanks." They took the conversation into the next room, where Ruth put water on to boil before continuing.

"I've been dead these last six months," Ruth began. "Or at least locked in a sensory deprivation chamber. When I decided to divorce Evan, everything just stopped. I haven't felt a thing. I'm sure I got hungry, thirsty and tired, but I can't remember it, nor what I ate, drank or dreamt. Maybe it was depression, but I wasn't sad. Six months of going through the motions—until the Tyger guards showed up at my door.

"That was Friday night. Since then I've been miserable, afraid for my life, overwhelmed by the change from there to here, and I have no idea what will happen next, but at least I feel _something_. I'm alive again. The only question is, how do I stay that way?"

"Look, I …know psychotic. I _am_ psychotic," Switch admitted. "That's part of how I stay alive in here and elsewhere. Because I'm not shy about showing it. Anyone who tries to lay hands on me will find I'm ready to mess him up bad. They all know it, and it makes them think twice or even three times. You don't have that advantage. With your build—you 're not a martial artist, are you?"

"No, just basic self-defense moves that I learned twenty years ago." The kettle was whistling, and Ruth went about preparing their beverages.

"Any enhancements or super powers?" Switch asked.

"I can get an entire class of behaviorally challenged students to sit quietly and read for an hour. Also when I cuddle small and overwrought children my breasts put them to sleep in seconds."

"Impressive," Switch nodded thoughtfully, "and potentially useful, but not quite what I meant. Whoa, wait a minute. _What_ did you just say you could so?"

"I pick them up and hold them close so they feel safe as when they were babies. Works like a charm on the ones who are worked up past exhaustion. Better than a tranquilizer. Honestly, I'm not making it up."

"Oookay. Anyhow, you're probably wondering how I got out and back in with your things. Don't think about getting out of here. If Strange is after you, you're safer in here than you are out there in the world. This place is a fortress, the most secure in Arkham City. Whatever arrangement you have with the Penguin, I can tell you that you represent a significant investment, between what he's paying me to retrieve your things and what I overheard on the way here. He always gets full value for his dollar, one way or another. Whatever it is that makes you worth it to him—and I_don't_ want or need to know the details—you're going to earn your keep. I couldn't do _that_. Not with…um."

"You've never been married, I can tell."

"No, but I'm not an innocent either," Switch bristled a little at that.

"Nevertheless, it makes a difference," Ruth handed her a steaming mug of cocoa. "It's different from dating, hooking up, or just living together. Imagine that you are on your honeymoon with the spouse of your wildest dreams, the love of your life, alone together in paradise. Now imagine that your spouse has come down with a terrible and disgusting, but not life-threatening, case of food poisoning and you are the only person in hundreds of miles. You will take care of them, because you have to, and it will strip away all your illusions about them being perfect. Yet it will be okay in the end."

"I'm not sure how this connects, but if you say so…Back on topic. The first thing about survival, don't jeopardize your place here. Second, you need to know who the players are and where they stand. Right now, they're Two-Face, the Joker, who by all accounts is dying, and your man…"

It was, as they say, the beginning of a (potentially) beautiful friendship.

* * *

A/N: This took me far too long to write and post: holiday prep, extra work, and such. I want to share something with you folks out there reading: Last chapter was, in terms of number of times read/number of individual readers, the most popular ever.

People went back to read it two or three times…and yet, I don't know why. Was it because it was a cross-over? Was it something I wrote? Was it Swordstitcher's excellent contribution? The people who reviewed it are my most constant and faithful commenters (Thank you, Bat-teen28, Tevinter of our Discontent, and Swordstitcher!) and I am particularly glad that Bat-teen and Tev commented on both halves.

Anyway, it would be nice to hear from some of the other folks too. Since apparently you really liked something. Off my soap-box now, back to plotting. Also, I have posted a link in my personal profile to a pic from an ad by Debenham's showing a swimsuit model built like Ruth next to a more conventional model. Just because.


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